Chuck Yeager

At 97 years old, Chuck Yeager has this physical status:

Charles Elwood Yeager (born February 13, 1923) is a retired US Air Force officer who has flown ace and a record-breaking test pilot.

In 1947, he became the first pilot to have surpassed the speed of sound in a level flight. Yeager's career began in World War II as a private in the US Army Air Forces.

After working as an aircraft mechanic, he began enlisted pilot training and on graduation was promoted to the rank of flight officer (the World War II USAAF equivalent to warrant officer) and became a P-51 fighter pilot. Yeager, an experimental rocket-powered aircraft, became a test pilot of many types of aircraft following the war.

On October 14, 1947, he flew the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at a height of 45,000 feet (13,700 meters), beating both the Collier and Mackay trophies in 1948. He was the first human to break the sound barrier.

He then went on to smash numerous other speed and altitude records. During the Vietnam War, Yeager commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia, in honor of those units's high success ratings, which earned him promotion to brigadier general.

Yeager's flying career spans more than 70 years, including the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Early life and education

Yeager was born February 13, 1923, in Myra, West Virginia, to farming parents Albert Hal Yeager (1896-193) and Susie Mae Yeager (1898–1987). His family moved to Hamlin, West Virginia, when he was five years old. Roy and Hal Jr., as well as two sisters Doris Ann (accidentally killed at age two by six-year-old Roy playing with a shotgun) and Pansy Lee.

He attended Hamlin High School, where he competed basketball and football, while receiving his best marks in geometry and typing. In June 1941, he graduated from high school.

During the summers of 1939 and 1940, he first served in the military as an adolescent at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. Yeager married Glennis Dickhouse on February 26, 1945, and the couple had four children at that time. Glennis Yeager died in 1990, predeceasing her husband by 30 years.

Steve Yeager, his cousin, was a professional baseball catcher.

Personal life

Yeager referred to his plane after his wife, Glennis, as a good-luck charm: "You're my good-luck charm, hon." Any airline I've named after you always bring me home." After retiring from the Air Force in 1975, Yeager and Glennis moved to Grass Valley, California. The couple prospered as a result of Yeager's best-selling autobiography, speaking engagements, and business ventures. Glennis Yeager died of ovarian cancer in 1990. They had four children (Susan, Don, Mickey, and Sharon). Mickey (Michael), Yeager's son, died in Oregon on March 26, 2011.

In 1988, Yeager appeared in a Texas commercial for George H. W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. Yeager met actress Victoria Scott D'Angelo on a hiking trail in Nevada County in 2000. The couple met soon after and married in August 2003. A tense rivalry erupted between Yeager, his children and D'Angelo, which was shortly followed by their entanglement in their marriage. The children argued that D'Angelo, the junior of Yeager's younger brother, had married him for his fortune. Both Yeager and D'Angelo have denied the charge. D'Angelo's children were accused of "undue influence" on Yeager, and Yeager accused his children of misappropriating millions of dollars from his estates, prompting litigation to ensue. The California Court of Appeal found that Yeager's daughter Susan had violated her role as trustee in August 2008.

Yeager died in Northern California in the afternoon of December 7, 2020 (National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day), in a Los Angeles hospital at age 97.

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Career

Yeager enlisted as a private in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on September 12, 1941, and served as an aircraft mechanic at George Air Force Base, Victorville, California. Yeager was not eligible for flight training because of his age and educational background, but the USAAF's entry of the United States into World War II less than three months later prompted the USAAF to update its recruiting policies. Yeager had unusually good vision (20/10), which later enabled him to shoot a deer at 600 feet (550 meters).

He was a crew chief on an AT-11 at the time of his flight training acceptance. He was awarded his pilot wings and a commission to flight officer at Luke Field, Arizona, where he graduated from Class 43C on March 10, 1943. He first trained with the 357th Fighter Group in Tonopah, Nevada, and moved abroad with the company on November 23, 1943.

With the 363d Fighter Squadron, RAF Leiston, Yeager, who was stationed in the United Kingdom, operated P-51 Mustangs in combat. He named his aircraft Glamorous Glen after his mother, Glennis Faye Dickhouse, who became his wife in February 1945. Yeager had won one victory before being shot down over France in his first aircraft (P-51B-5-763) on March 5, 1944, on his eighth mission. He escaped to Spain on March 30, 1944, with the support of the Maquis (French Resistance) and returned to England on May 15, 1944. During his time in Maquis, Yeager helped with duties that did not involve direct combat; he helped develop bombs for the group, a skill he acquired from his father. He was given the Bronze Star for assisting a navigator, Omar M. "Pat" Patterson, Jr., in crossing the Pyrenees.

Yeager was restored to flying combat despite a law prohibiting "evaders" (escaped pilots) from flying across enemy territory once more, the goal of which was to discourage resistance groups from being compromised by giving the enemy a second shot at potentially landing him. In speaking directly to Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 12, 1944, he joined another evader, fellow P-51 pilot 1st Lt Fred Glover. "I raised so much hell that GM finally let me go back to my squadron," Yeager said. "He cleared me for combat on D Day because all the free Frenchmen – Maquis and others like that – had surfaced." After receiving permission from the War Department to make the demands, Eisenhower agreed with Yeager and Glover. Yeager shot down his second enemy aircraft, a German Junkers Ju 88 bomber, over the English Channel.

Yeager's outstanding flying skills and combat leadership were demonstrated. He became the first pilot in his company to make "ace in a day" on October 12, 1944, crashing five enemy planes in a single mission. Two of these victories were scored without firing a single shot: the pilot of a Messerschmitt Bf 109 panicked, breaking to starboard and colliding with his wingman. Both pilots died out, according to Yeager. He ended the war with 11.5 official victories, including one of the first air-to-air victories over a jet fighter, a German Messerschmitt Me 262 that he shot down as it was on the final approach for landing.

Yeager recalled with displeasure that "both sides were atrocities" on both directions, and he embarked on a mission with orders from the Eighth Air Force to "strafe anything that moved" in his 1986 memoirs. "We sure as hell better make sure we are on the winning team while doing this," he whispered to Major Donald H. Bochkay during the mission briefing. "I'm certainly not proud of this particular strafing operation against civilians," Yeager said. However, it is there, on the record, and in my memory." He also expressed disappointment with his treatment in England during World War II, describing the British as "arrogant" and "nasty."

When Yeager was at Leiston, he was appointed a second lieutenant and was promoted to captain before the end of his tour. On January 15, 1945, he completed his 61st and final mission before returning to the United States in early February 1945. He had his pick of assignments as an evader, but because his new wife was pregnant, he selected Wright Field to be near his house in West Virginia. His vast number of flight hours and maintenance experience qualified him to be a certified test pilot of a refurbished aircraft, which put him under the command of Colonel Albert Boyd, the Aeronautical Systems Flight Test Division's chief.

Following graduating from Air Materiel Command Flight Performance School (Class 46C), Yeager remained in the United States Army Air Forces after the war, becoming a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base). The USAAF selected Yeager, a 24-year-old Yeager, to fly the rocket-powered Bell XS-1 in a NACA initiative to study high-speed flight after Bell Aircraft test pilot Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin ordered US$150,000 (equivalent to $1,820,000 in 2021) to break the sound "barrier." The USAAF became the United States Air Force (USAF) on September 18, under the National Security Act of 1947.

Such was the difficulty of this job that the answer to several of the inherent challenges was along the lines of "younger better have paid-up insurance." Yeager fell from a horse two nights before the flight's scheduled date. He was worried that the injury would have kept him off the mission, and he went to a military doctor in nearby Rosamond, who taped his ribs. Yeager, not his wife, was riding with him, told only his acquaintance and fellow project pilot Jack Ridley about the crash. Yeager was so ill that he could not seal the X-1's hatch by himself on the flight's day. To force Yeager to close the hatch, Ridley rigged up a device using the end of a broom handle as an extra lever.

In a level flight, Yeager broke the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert's Rogers Dry Lake at 55,000 feet (13,700 meters). The mission's success was not announced to the public for nearly eight months until June 10, 1948. In 1948, Yeager was given the Mackay Trophy and the Collier Trophy for his mach-transcending flight as well as the Harmon International Trophy. The X-1 he flew that day was later on loan from the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and on permanent display. He attended the Air Command and Staff College in 1952.

Yeager continued to smash several other speed and altitude records. After its pilot, No Kum-sok, defected to South Korea, he was also one of the first American pilots to fly a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15. Yeager, who was returning to Muroc in the second half of 1953, was attached to the USAF team on the X-1A, an aircraft designed to fly over Mach 2 in level flight. That year, he flew a chase plane for civilian pilot Jackie Cochran, who became the first woman to fly faster than sound.

The D-558-II skyrocket and its pilot, Scott Crossfield, became the first team to reach twice the speed of sound on November 20, 1953. Ridley and Yeager decided to smash rival Crossfield's speed record in a string of test flights they dubbed "Operation NACA Weep" after being disqualified. Not only did they beat Crossfield by setting a new record at Mach 2.44 on December 12, 1953, but they did it in time to ruin a special occasion planned for the 50th anniversary of flight, in which Crossfield would be dubbed "the fastest man alive."

The new record flight, on the other hand, did not exactly go to plan after Yeager's control of the X-1A dropped shortly after reaching Mach 2.44, a phenomenon that was largely unknown at the time. Yeager dropped 51,000 ft (16,000 m) in less than a minute before regaining control at around 29,000 ft (8,800 m). He then managed to land without incident. In 1954, Yeager was given the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) for his contribution to this achievement.

Yeager was the first fighter pilot and held multiple squadron and wing commands. He commanded the F-86H Sabre-equipped 417th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (50th Fighter-Bomber Wing) at Hahn AB, West Germany, and Toul-Rosieres Air Base, France, from 1957 to 1960, and Morón Air Base, Spain, 1954.

Yeager became the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, which produced astronauts for NASA and the USAF, after its redesignation from the USAF Flight Test Pilot School. (Yeager himself had only attended a high school curriculum, so he was not qualified to become an astronaut like those he trained.) Yeager was the only one on Earth in April 1962 with Neil Armstrong. They were flying a T-33 to investigate Smith Ranch Dry Lake, Nevada, for use as an emergency landing site for the North American X-15. Yeager wrote in his autobiography that after recent rains, he knew the lake bed was unsuitable for landings, but Armstrong refused to fly out anyway. Yeager told Armstrong that they should not do a touch-and-goal, but "You may touch, but you ain't gonna go." As Armstrong came to a stop, the wheels became stuck in the mud, causing the plane to come to a halt and causing much laughter. They had to wait for rescue.

Yeager's participation in NASA's experiment pilot training program included a slew of things, including inconsist behavior. According to Yeager, Ed Dwight, the first African American pilot to enroll in the program, should be included in it. The filmmakers claimed that Yeager told employees and students at the academy that "Washington is trying to cram the nigger down our throats." [President] Kennedy is using this to create 'racial equality,' so do not speak to him, do not drink alcohol with him, do not invite him over to your house, and in six months he'll be gone." Dwight explains in his autobiography how Yeager's leadership resulted in discriminatory treatment during his time at Edwards Air Force Base.

Yeager made five flights in the NASA M2-F1 lifting body between December 1963 and 1964. In December 1963, an accident on a test flight in one of the school's NF-104s resulted in significant injuries. The plane's controls became ineffective after it climbed to a near-record altitude, and it became a spin in a flat. Yeager was ejected from the plane after many turns and an altitude loss of nearly 95,000 feet. The seat straps were released normally during the ejection but the seat base was slammed into Yeager, with the still-hot rocket motor breaking his helmet's plastic faceplate and causing his emergency oxygen supply to catch fire. The resultant burns to his face demanded extensive and agonizing medical attention. This was Yeager's last attempt at setting test-flying records.

Yeager took command of the 405th Tactical Fighter Wing at Clark Air Base, the Philippines, whose squadrons were sent on rotational temporary service (TDY) in South Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia in 1966. He completed 127 missions. Yeager was given command of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, and oversaw the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II wing in South Korea during the Pueblo tragedy in February 1968.

Yeager was promoted to brigadier general and was named vice-commander of the Seventeenth Air Force in July 1969.

Yeager was sent as the Air Attache in Pakistan from 1971 to 1973, the first Pakistani to crack the sound barrier), at the behest of Ambassador Joseph Farland. He arrived in Pakistan at a time when tensions with India were at an all-time peak. Despite this, he continued to work in Pakistan. During this period, Yeager was assisting Pakistani engineers in the installation of AIM-9 Sidewinders on PAF's Shenyang F-6 fighters. He was also keen on working with PAF troops from various Pakistani squadrons and assisting them in devising combat tactics. On one occasion in 1972, when visiting the No. 301 in the United Kingdom, I was taken aback. After Chuck ordered a tour of the world's second highest mountain, the squadron "Cobras" at Peshawar Airbase escorted him to the K-2 in a pair of F-86Fs. After hostilities broke out in 1971, he decided to stay in West Pakistan and continue to control the PAF's operations. "the Pakistanis whipped the Indians' asses in the skies," Chuck said, "the Pakistanis had a three-to-one kill ratio, destroying 102 Russian-made Indian jets and losing 34 planes of their own." During the war, he soared all around the western front in a helicopter documenting the wreckage of Indian warplanes of Soviet origin, including Sukhoi Su-7s and Mig-21s, and was transported to the United States after the war for analysis. In addition, he hopped around in his Beechcraft Queen Air, a small passenger plane that had been delivered to him by the Pentagon, collecting up shot down Indian fighter pilots. The Beechcraft was later destroyed during an air raid carried out by the Indian Air Force at a PAF airbase. Chuck was fortunately not in the plane when he was introduced. In October 1985, Edward C. Ingraham, a US diplomat who had served as a political advisor to Ambassador Farland in Islamabad, recalled this incident: "After Yeager's Beechcraft was destroyed in an Indian air attack, he yelled at his cowering colleagues that Indira Gandhi had specifically ordered him to fire his plane." Later, he wrote, 'the Indian way of granting Uncle Sam the finger'"." Yeager was enraged over the incident and ordered that the United States retaliate.

Yeager retired from the Air Force at Norton Air Force Base, California, following deployment in West Germany and Pakistan.

Yeager appeared in the film The Right Stuff (1983), where he made a cameo appearance. "Fred," a bartender at "Pancho's Place," was the most appropriate, as Yeager said, "I think I spent more time at her place than in a cockpit." In the film, Sam Shepard played Yeager, who chronicles in part his historic 1947 record-breaking flight. Yeager has been referred to several times as a member of the Star Trek universe, including having a fictional form of starship named after him and appearing in an archived video within the series Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). Captain Jonathan Archer, the lead character in the series, was imagined as being "halfway between Chuck Yeager and Han Solo," according to executive producer Rick Berman.

Yeager was closely linked to GM for many years in the 1980s, promoting ACDelco, the company's automotive parts division. In 1986, he was invited to race the Chevrolet Corvette in the Indianapolis 500's 70th edition. Yeager was invited to drive the pace car again in 1988, this time at the wheel of an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. President Reagan named Yeager to the Rogers Commission that prosecuted the Space Shuttle Challenger's explosion in 1986.

During this period, Yeager served as a technical advisor on three Electronic Arts flight simulator video games. Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer, Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer 2.0, and Chuck Yeager's Air Combat are among the games included. The game manuals contained quotes and anecdotes from Yeager and were well received by players. Missions featured several of Yeager's accomplishments as well as his challenge to top his records. Advance Flight Trainer by Chuck Yeager was the top-selling game in 1987 for Electronic Art's top-selling game.

Yeager appeared on the documentary The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club in 2009, a tribute to his friend Pancho Barnes. The documentary was shown at film festivals, aired on public television in the United States, and earned an Emmy Award.

He flew a new Glamorous Glennis III, an F-15D Eagle, over Mach 1 on October 14, 1997, on the 50th anniversary of his historic flight past Mach 1. The chase plane for the flight was a Falcon F-16 Fighting Falcon piloted by Bob Hoover, a long-serving test pilot and aerobatic pilot who had been Yeager's wingman for the first supersonic flight. Yeager said, "All I am......... at the end of his address to the audience in 1997." "I owe the Air Force" to them. He was the recipient of the Tony Jannus Award later this month for his contributions.

Yeager did it again, flying as co-pilot in a McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle piloted by Captain David Vincent out of Nellis Air Force Base on October 14, 2012, on the 65th anniversary of breaking the sound barrier.

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